


Veil of the Forgotten

by trashgoblinwizardparty



Series: Veil of the Forgotten [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cohabitation, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Necromancy, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:46:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21625081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashgoblinwizardparty/pseuds/trashgoblinwizardparty
Summary: It had been nine months since Harry had inadvertently become apprenticed to a necromancer.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Series: Veil of the Forgotten [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1349563
Comments: 20
Kudos: 205





	Veil of the Forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> yeah so this is happening. 
> 
> amethyst and bone...the SEQUEL. the working title was "amethyst and boners" but i do try to have at least the facade of respectability, so its name is...not...that...
> 
> this one's gonna have SMUT and also PLOT and probably FEELINGS. and maybe some casual necromancy thrown in. y'know, for flavor.

It had been nine months since Harry had inadvertently become apprenticed to a necromancer. 

He wasn’t sure how long it had been until recently, since accurate time-telling was not a priority in Tom’s home. But an offhand comment by Tom about Midsummer being in three days gave Harry a point of reference. Since then, he’d been marking the days off next to the hearthstone using a bit of charcoal. And, by his reckoning, it was now nearly his eighteenth birthday. 

So much had happened since Tom had taken him in that it felt more like nine years. 

Including the fact Harry had died a couple of times. 

Tom never said anything outright about it, but the “fluttery things” Harry had been seeing at the edges of his vision right before something catastrophic nearly happened—the time he’d climbed the Not-Tree and fallen, or the time he’d made the mistake of touching The Book—that was his own death hovering. And each time, Tom must have brought him back. 

He’d realized it only after he’d gone through the Veil and come back a few months ago. Harry still wasn’t sure if going through the Veil counted as a real death. Maybe it was a partial death? 

Half his dreams were about his time in the realm of the dead: cloudy, moon-white eyes, bloated, waxy skin, horrific death wounds and exposed bone, poison and rot. He wasn’t exactly keen on going back, and Tom hadn’t made him. At least, not yet. In fact, what Tom even wanted with the Veil was something of a mystery. No one could see it (except Harry, evidently). Harry couldn’t figure out what use it served, other than perhaps as something to push an enemy through. But that seemed a rather inconvenient way of killing someone. 

Tom may have liked to talk, but there were certain things he kept to himself, and what he wanted with the Veil was one of them. _Some nefarious necromancer thing, no doubt,_ Harry thought. 

But he hadn’t forced Harry to go back in, and Harry hadn’t brought it up. 

In fact, now that Tom had found what he was looking for, he hadn’t been bringing Harry along on his wanderings as often. Something he was a little surprised (and maybe a bit hurt) by. 

Life as a necromancer’s apprentice was, surprisingly, a vast improvement to his previous life. Perhaps he’d sold his soul when he took Tom’s hand that day in the woods, but Harry couldn’t find it in himself to regret it, even if he had nightmares of dead, grasping hands. 

The nightmares were bad, but the worst thing by far were the... _other_ dreams. 

Lately, they had taken a turn for the _lurid_. 

Harry was very, very glad that Tom was always gone by the time he woke up, or he’d have some rather difficult things to explain. Like why he needed to change the sheets more often, or why he was always washing his underpants. 

How could he explain? The things he dreamt of made unwelcome heat rush to his face...and… and somewhat lower. 

Dreams such as: _Tom rolling Harry onto his stomach in their shared bed, pinning him down with his greater weight, and slowly fucking him into the mattress._

_Or coming up behind Harry as he’s cleaning and bending him roughly over the workbench._

_Or even Harry knelt in front of Tom as he sat in his chair by the fire, Tom’s hands gripping his hair as he thrust into Harry’s willing mouth._

Even thinking of it now sent a sizzle of arousal coursing through his veins to tighten his trousers, and he had to think of rotting dead things to banish the thoughts. 

Harry glanced over to the spot on the floor where the rune circle was. His internal clock was telling him it was about time for Tom to return. He finished dusting the mantel—making sure to give The Book a wide berth—and went over to the kitchen area to start the tea. 

Tom had a special blend that he liked, but wouldn’t allow Harry to drink. Considering how the stone on his collar pulsed a warning whenever he touched the box, Harry suspected he wouldn’t survive it anyway. Some instinct warned him to be very careful not to breathe too deeply when he prepared this tea for Tom. 

The kettle was just beginning to boil when Tom appeared in the center of the rune circle in a flash of violet light. 

“We’re going out tomorrow,” Tom said without preamble. 

Harry moved the kettle from the fire and set it on a stone tile set into the countertop. “Oh?” He really didn’t know what else to say to that. But a traitorous flutter of elation at being brought along flared bright in his chest. He reached into the cupboard and pulled down Tom’s favored mug. 

“You’ll like it,” Tom said. Then he paused. “Or maybe you won’t. But you should see it anyway.” 

“Er,” Harry said, stupidly. He was still holding the mug. 

“Tea can wait,” Tom said, eyeing the kettle. “I’m going to take a bath.” 

Tom took off his cloak and it dissipated into shadow. Harry could see that there were flecks of red-black across his cheek and shining on his black shirt. His shiny black leather boots tracked dirt across the floor (that Harry had just scrubbed), and the scent of fresh death clung to him. 

Harry swallowed and put the tea things away in Tom’s rather ominous wake. 

  
  


* * *

Godric’s Hollow was no more. 

Harry had known it, in an intellectual way, but seeing the truth of it with his own eyes was still shocking. Buildings were destroyed, like they’d been torn apart by gigantic hands. Even the ruins were scattered, as if having a single brick next to its brother was not allowed. 

There, where the Dursley’s Bakery had been, was nothing but a smoking ruin. Still smoking, as if the fire had only just been put out, even though it had been months since it happened. Beneath a large stone, a bit of...something could be seen. Cloth, with what might have been an arm still inside sticking out from underneath. 

Harry, remembering what sort of injuries Dudley had in the realm of the dead, stayed far away.

There was where the butcher shop had been, its white plaster walls reduced to dust, and a faint stench of rotting meat still hanging about the place. The old armory building, whose slate tiles had precipitated Harry’s flight and subsequent exile, looked as if something gigantic had knocked into it, toppling it to the ground. Bits of slate tile were scattered about, smashed and broken. 

There wasn’t even a single wall left standing. 

Harry didn’t really know how to feel about it. 

He felt...something. A feeling that he couldn’t put a name to, somewhere between horror, guilt, and relief. 

Tom had taken him here, possibly to survey his handiwork, or perhaps to show off a bit. Harry wasn’t sure—Tom was still difficult for him to read, sometimes. Just when he thought he’d understand the man a bit, he’d do something capricious, and throw Harry off completely. 

Harry was grateful that any remaining corpses were either buried in the rubble or picked clean by scavengers. The bones that littered the ground were only that. Bones of nameless people, not his family and neighbors. He could pretend, at least. 

A Potter’s Field, indeed. 

Harry found Tom standing where the church had once been. Shards of stained glass glinted in the late afternoon sun. The red of the sunset was unsettlingly like the bloody sky of the other realm, and Harry found himself constantly looking over his shoulder for the restless dead. 

Though he knew if any dead were to stir, it would be only because Tom bade them to. Harry had nothing to fear from corpses. 

Tom had shed his cloak and had his face tilted up and eyes closed, as if he were basking in the ruddy light of the dying sun. Harry always found it difficult to look directly at him when he was like this, in moments of seeming relaxation. The light painted Tom’s high cheekbones and aristocratic nose in rose-gold. Harry’s eyes guiltily followed the elegant line of his throat down to the open collar of his loose black shirt which revealed a tantalizing hint of collar bone. Coal black hair, curling softly, and the dark crescent of eyelashes against pale skin. 

Harry found he needed to avert his gaze, struck once again by how beautiful Tom was. He looked down at the overturned flagstones and scorched and shattered colored glass and tried to will away the flush rising on his cheeks. The smoking ruins of Godric’s Hollow were more than enough of a reminder of how dangerous his master was. 

“Well?” Tom asked, breaking the silence. 

Harry made the mistake of looking up. Tom’s fathomless black eyes pinned him in place. 

Harry swallowed with some difficulty and licked his lips. His mouth had gone dry. “Er—well what?” 

Tom said nothing, but instead made a gesture that encompassed the smoldering ruins and raised his eyebrows. 

“It’s…” Harry trailed off, unsure of what to say. 

Nothing seemed appropriate. 

But Tom appeared to be waiting for a response of some kind, so Harry tried again.

“It’s very...flat...now?”

Tom’s mouth curved into a cruel smile and he looked out over the wreckage with something like pride. “Yes, it is rather flat now, isn’t it?” 

Harry shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He toed at a charred bit of green glass. 

“Harry.” 

He looked up. Tom was very, very close. His dark eyes searched Harry’s face. 

Harry licked his lips, having to tilt his neck back to meet his gaze. “It’s...nice,” he managed.

Tom’s laughter rang out across the decimated village, echoing strangely off the rubble and raising the hair on the back of Harry’s neck. 

“It’s not nice,” Tom said at last. “It is very far from _nice_ , I’d say.” 

Harry swallowed again, feeling as if he’d walked into a trap. 

“But I did do it for _you_ , Harry.” Tom’s eyes had pinned him down again. “Think of it as a birthday gift, if you like.”

The collar around Harry’s neck constricted once. A reminder. _Your life is mine, now and forever_. 

How Tom knew it was Harry’s birthday was beyond him. But he’d long ago given up on trying to figure out what Tom knew about him. 

Quite suddenly, Harry recalled a sermon he’d heard in this very church: _“Damned is the man who chooses to stand by the Devil’s side to avoid being in his path.”_

Harry shifted uncomfortably. The church certainly had things to say about men desiring other men—and lust in general—as well. But the Dursleys had stopped going to church when Harry first manifested his Witch-Talent—Uncle Vernon had always grumbled about not wanting Harry to get “strange ideas” like turning water into wine...or raising the dead. 

All at once Harry was seized by the strange desire to laugh and had to bite down on his cheek. Raising the dead. That was the very last thing he wanted to do here.

Harry let out a slow breath, trying to calm his racing heart, then met Tom’s gaze squarely. “It’s horrific,” he said truthfully. “I didn’t _want_ to see it, but I think I _needed_ to, if you catch my meaning?” 

Tom smiled. It was a genuine, dangerous smile, and it made Harry’s heart race for a different reason. 

“I think we’re done here, wouldn’t you say?” Tom said.

He made a careless gesture with his hand and shadows came unstuck from behind rocks and ruins. They fluttered across the space and coalesced into Tom’s cloak. He shrugged it over his shoulders and summoned the staff from where it was leaning against the shattered husk of a tree. Then he wrapped an arm around Harry’s shoulders. 

Harry cast one last look around at the ruin of Godric’s Hollow and relaxed helplessly into Tom’s side. The flickering cloak woven of death enveloped them, and they were whisked back to the Deep Woods in the space between one breath and the next. 

  
  
  



End file.
